


Take This Pain (So Far From My Heart Now)

by BelaBellissima



Series: To Be Human [1]
Category: Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Terminal Illnesses, chief is napi, first in series is angst ending, gas poisoning, no profreading we die like mne, second in series is happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:01:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22701418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BelaBellissima/pseuds/BelaBellissima
Summary: In which Steve survives the plane, and nothing really changes
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor
Series: To Be Human [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632796
Comments: 7
Kudos: 21





	Take This Pain (So Far From My Heart Now)

**Author's Note:**

> i had this idea the first time i saw the movie on opening day and its taken me three years to finally finish this. you'll probably be able to tell where i kinda gave up and just wrote an ending lol. 
> 
> I don't like angst without a happy ending so its hard for me.
> 
> As a result, even though i only planned on the first angsty ending, i literally could not stop from also writing a happily ever after version as well. I'll post the happy version as a sequel in a few days maybe, to give the angst some time to stand on its own.

She’s never felt this kind of power before.

Then again – she’s never felt like this before.

Steve is dead. Blown up right in front of her. The sky is still lit up orange from the gas as it burns in the atmosphere.

Ares is blown back as she bursts from his trap, as she screams so loudly she’s sure even her mother can hear her on Themyscira, can hear her pain and think _I told you they did not deserve you._

The Germans run from her. She chases because they killed people, they lied and stole and made people into slaves, and she does not care anymore if it was Ares’ fault or not, because Steve is _dead_ and Steve was _good._ For all that he thought he wasn’t, Steve was the best man she knew.

They shoot at her in fear as she destroys their ranks, bullets deflecting off her bracers with little sparks that light up in her eyes like the plane had only moments before. Diana knows Ares is watching this, watching and loving every moment as she lets go and acts like him, acts like _them_ , but she ignores him as he starts talking.

“Yes, Diana!” he cries, eyes wide with awe at her pure violence. “Take them all! Finally, you see.” He spreads his arms wide like her, gesturing to everything around them, at all the destruction being wreaked by Diana.

“Look at this world. Mankind did this, not me.”

Diana looks around slowly, taking in the roaring flames around her, the orange tint to the world from their sheer size. Her hair is flying around her face from the winds being kicked up, and she turns it to let it fly behind her. Ares stands before her again, his arms still out to his sides.

“They are ugly, filled with hatred, weak! Just like your Captain Trevor.”

Diana bares her teeth at her brother as he spits in the memory of Steve, degrading him and insulting his pure goodness. She takes a step forward to stack, but she flicks her eyes above him for only a second, to look at where their father once ruled as if to shame him for creating a son such as Ares.

She sees something falling through the sky, and it stops her anger in its tracks. The thing is spiraling, flipping endlessly as it flails and tries to right itself. A moment later it gives up, stops flailing, and a piece of cloth erupts above it. It jerks roughly into a slower freefall, even as it continues to spin uncontrollably, and the cloth begins to fold and tangle up on itself.

Diana finally sees what – _who_ – it is.

“Steve,” she breathes, and then she lunges forward, jumping over Ares, who is expecting an attack and lets her go by him unknowingly. She leaps up as Steve falls closer, catching him perfectly as their two paths cross.

She creates a crater in the ground from the force of her landing, falling to her knees when her legs give out in relief.

The parachute tangles up around them, shielding the orange sky from view and sheltering the pair from the destruction around them.

“Diana?” he asks, still a little out of it from freefalling through the sky.

“Steve,” she says, holding him closer to her. “I thought you were dead.”

“Well, you know,” he says, trying to play it off. “One of the pilots had a parachute on them, and the timer was easy to change. I set it to ten seconds and jumped.”

Diana bows her head, pressing her forehead to his. She knows she only has a few seconds more before Ares will attack again, but she doesn’t want to leave Steve’s side.

“Do not move,” she demands, pulling back and looking into his eyes. “Stay here, out of the way. I will come for you after I have killed Ares.”

Steve just nods, releasing her as she sets him down and rips the parachute in half, rather than fish for the edge in the blowing wind.

She steps forward from the cloth, where her quarry awaits, stalking slowly toward her.

“Ares,” she growls. “You have caused enough evil today. Your wrath upon this world is over.”

Ares laughs, and Diana charges.

* * *

When it’s over, the skies begin to clear. The fires diffuse as soon as Ares is gone, bringing back the dark blue of the rising dawn. Soldiers all around her pull their masks off, relief evident on their faces. They begin to embrace each other, not caring whether their neighbor is one of them or one of Diana’s companions.

Napi approaches her afterward, offering his hand as Diana grasps it firmly. She smiles at him, and when he looks over her shoulder, she turns as well. Steve is sitting where she left him, still surrounded by the parachute, appearing almost childlike as he looks around the empty airfield.

“You’re lucky to get more time with him,” Napi says. “Spend it well, Diana.” She squeezes his hand once before releasing to go to Steve. Napi turns as well, returning to Sammy and Charlie’s sides. Steve looks up at her as she approaches, a smile growing on his face.

“You did it,” he says breathily. He coughs a few times immediately afterward, his face scrunching up in pain momentarily.

“We did,” Diana says, kneeling down in front of Steve. “If you hadn’t stopped that plane, then who knows what might’ve happened.”

Steve reaches up, taking her face gently in his hands, a much happier mimicry than the fearful and resigned occurrence a few minutes before.

“You saved today,” Diana says softly, her own hands coming up to cover his.

“You saved the world,” Steve returns, pulling Diana closer to embrace her.

Diana stands smoothly, pulling Steve to his feet at the same time, quickly and without warning so that they’re still holding each other.

“Come,” she says, finally releasing Steve and grabbing his hand. He lets her hold on, lets her pull them toward their friends, leaving the torn-up parachute behind on the ground. “There is no more war, and it is dawn. Let us get breakfast.”

Steve laughs. “I don’t think there’ll be any papers around to read.”

Diana smiles back. There will be time to experience everything later, but for now, she relishes in the feeling of having Steve alive next to her.

* * *

The feeling does not last.

Diana returns with Steve to London over the course of the next two days, celebrating in the streets among other people and placing flowers in front of the few memorials she sees. They visit the pub where they had picked up Sammy and Charlie, and Etta knocks a man out with a bottle within the first few minutes just before Diana and Steve walk in.

They see the glass on the ground and the man who had threatened Charlie sulking in the corner, his friends ribbing him for being beaten by a woman twice, and Diana smiles at her friend. Knowing that Etta has begun to demand respect in the way of the Amazons makes her joyous – she wouldn’t want her to be held back by her own preconceived and imagined restrictions.

Diana makes a mental note to teach her a few moves as she and Steve sit. Steve picks up the glass Napi had ordered for him but takes only one sip before he starts coughing again. Diana thinks it’s because of the drink, that it might be something stronger than Steve is used to or he drank too fast. Steve haphazardly set the glass down as he grabs a handkerchief and coughs into it, but when he pulls it away, Diana sees specks of blood on the cloth.

“Steve?” she asks, already worried beyond belief.

Steve tries to answer her but begins coughing again, and when he finally stops, there is a noticeably large spot of blood in the center of the cloth.

“I’m fine,” he finally says, voice lightly hoarse as he tries to push through his discomfort.

He puts a hand on her knee, a silent plea not to bring it up among the others, who hadn’t seen the blood and are joking about Steve not being able to hold his liquor.

Diana narrows her eyes at him but obliges, turning back to the conversation with a strained smile. Napi catches her eyes, the look in his own gaze something understanding and apologetic, the kind where the person apologizing didn’t do anything wrong but knows no other way to express sympathy and remorse to someone who had gone through something terrible.

The look unsettles Diana. The other demigod at the table knows something is wrong, and it looks like he’s upset there’s nothing he can do to help.

Napi looks back to the group, the moment of understanding between them over. Diana feels cold and reaches out to grasp Steve’s hand.

She waits for their gathering to end, for Etta to explain their new mission, how the Allied powers want them to search for an “Artifact,” though Diana knows it to really be a Motherbox. The fact that the Box of Man has been unearthed unsettles her, but not enough to make her speak up. As long as the box is quiet, there is no reason to bring voice and power to it.

She knows she’ll find it later, will take it from the Americans before they can study it and use its powers to accidentally summon Steppenwolf, will bury it alone so that it might be lost again should the time ever come when it needs to be kept from the New God.

For now, she helps Steve back to his small, sparse apartment after the night is over. Steve has another coughing fit from the cold air when they’re almost back, and Diana ends up needing to carrying him the last few blocks of the journey.

She sets him down as gently as she can on his bed, letting him sit against the headboard. He’s sweating profusely, thought the apartment and the night air is still incredibly cold.

“What is wrong, Steve? Why are you coughing up blood? What is happening?”

Steve shakes his head, grimacing slightly as he speaks. “I don’t know for sure, Diana. I don’t know.”

Diana doesn’t believe him, but she doesn’t pull out her lasso either.

“Do not lie to me, Steve Trevor. Not after everything we’ve fought against and survived.”

Steve gets a look in his eyes, a sad, defeated one that makes Diana’s heart race.

“There’s been a few reports throughout the war, of soldiers who were too close to gas but survived, only to die at home,” he says, taking her hand in his and pressing his lips to the back of her fingers.

“I got a lungful back at Veld.”

Diana remembers that, barely. She had walked through the town without any injury, the gas doing nothing to her because of the divinity within. She had been so angry with him at that time, thinking their deaths to be because Steve had prevented her from killing Ludendorff at the gala. He had coughed and stumbled on the edges of the cloud but not fallen, not died like the villagers. She had thought that since he had not died then and there that he was safe from it.

She shakes her head slowly, disbelief and horror beginning to fill her. “No,” she says, refusing to accept it. “You can’t die, not when I got you back. The war is over, we’re supposed to be safe. We’re supposed to get breakfast and read the paper, and you should go to work, and I should get a job, and we should grow old together, Steve Trevor. You cannot die on me now.”

The look he sends her makes her heart break alongside his.

“There’s not really anything I can do to fight it, Diana. It’s out of my hands.”

* * *

Steve gets worse by the day.

What starts as a small cough accompanied by blood soon becomes a rattle, wheezing, deep in Steve’s chest. It’s just as likely for a trickle of blood to be leaking from the corner of his mouth as it is for there to be nothing. The possibility is driving Diana insane.

It’s just not fair. She left her home and family to save the world alongside this good man, and here he is dying, because he ran after her. She had known the gas wouldn’t affect her – she hadn’t realized just how potent it could be for a normal human. Just one breath was enough.

His skin turns sallow, sinking in until it’s tight against his bones. His muscle wastes away, and Diana finds herself desperate to make him move, make him get up every day so that he can still walk, still feed himself, still bathe.

Diana wants to scream, to wail her grievances to the long-gone Gods, to shout herself hoarse until Apollo or Zeus himself returns to life and answers, because that is all she can do, she can’t fight an enemy that’s within and intangible. She can’t fight, she can’t protect, she cannot do what she was _created for_ \- she cannot fulfill her own purpose.

In a week, Steve cannot hold up his own food. Diana has to feed him each individual bite, wipe away anything that catches on his chapped lips, falls down onto his chest. Steve is embarrassed, closes his eyes asks to be left alone after each meal, wants to wallow in his own self-pity. It is so unlike him, but with his numbered days Diana lets him have his own space.

By the end of the next week, Steve sleeps more than he does not. Diana sits at his bedside, wiping away sweat with a cool cloth and dribbling water into his parted mouth a few times an hour to keep him hydrated.

When he is awake, he’s not fully there. His eyes are glassy and he rambles, calling out names of people Diana doesn’t know. Sometimes he calls for their friends, and she brings them to him. Etta cries a lot, trying to keep a smile for Steve, but the tears come anyway. Charlie starts drinking more than usual, pulling out a flask throughout his visits. Sammy acts wonderfully, keeping up spirits enough that when Steve is lucid, he manages to laugh. It’s weak and phlegmy, but it’s a laugh none-the-less. Outside the room though, Sammy’s face falls. He’s had many friends die like this, he tells Diana. It’s never pretty.

Napi is Diana’s greatest support. He’s there, and he’s a rock for her to lean on – patient and listening when she needs to vent, calming and practical when she needs to just listen.

He knows what it’s like to outlive the people you love.

And then-

She does.

Diana is not used to death. She had trained her whole life to prepare for it - taking life during the war was terrifyingly easy when it came down to doing her duty to protect the innocent. But losing people? Her aunt Antiope and some of her sisters in the battle on the beach was her first experience and losing the people of Veld was the next. They hurt her, broke a part of her she hadn’t realized could be broken.

And now, Steve is added to the list.

He passes in the early morning. The sky is grey, cloudy, dark. It’s what it looked like her first day in London – hideous. She’s seen it be beautiful since then, but on this morning it seems to sense what she feels; it physicalizes the loss of a great man.

Diana is mute at the funeral, a silent guardian as Steve is lowered into the Earth. She tacks his picture up on the memorial wall when she finally feels able to, looking at it for a moment before turning away. Everyone is there with her, and they go out for a drink to toast Steve’s memory.

It’s somber this time, full of stories each had with Steve some time in their past. A fitting memorial, Diana believes.

She memorizes each person’s face - the way they look here, together and not-quite happy, but whole and alive. She hopes that her friends will find the peace and happiness they deserve. She hopes that maybe, she might be able to one day as well. The night slowly draws to a close, the pub emptying out as midnight passes them by. When the rest of them head home, she leaves.

She’s heard good things about Paris.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah sorry
> 
> anyway [find me online and scream at me!](https://linktr.ee/belabellissima) twitter tumblr and others are linked :)


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